Toby Spribille was 18 years old when he first discovered a new-to-western-science species of lichen, and became hooked on lichenology.
“I realized there was quite a bit of unrecognized species diversity among lichens,” says the now world-renowned lichenologist and author. “This idea that there were species so new to science — and there weren’t that many people researching them — really excited me.”
It wasn’t the prestige of naming new species that appealed to Toby, so much as the thought of what this diversity could mean for conservation if it was properly documented.
While working for the US Forest Service early on in his career, Toby recounts hearing a silviculturalist say that if you vacuumed all the wood off the forest floors in Montana, not a single organism would go extinct.
“I knew in my gut that was false, but I didn’t have the data to disprove it,” Toby says.
That brief interaction would ultimately shape the path of Toby’s career. He’s dedicated much of his life since to identifying the lichens that would be lost from our latitudes if the forestry industry was “given free reign” — and using this information to help engage and educate the public about the importance of protecting at-risk ecosystems.
His work has seen him spend countless hours pushing through thorny Devil’s Club and moist undergrowth in British Columbia’s Inland Temperate Rainforest, including with Wildsight Conservation Specialist Eddie Petryshen.
We sat down to ask him about the lichens of the Kootenay-Columbia region, how they relate to caribou conservation, and what we can learn about a landscape from the lichens it contains.
Wildsight: What is it about lichens that fascinates you enough to want to dedicate your life to them?
Toby: Lichens are one of the most species-rich groups at our latitudes. A lot of people think about biodiversity through a tropical lens. They’re wowed by the butterflies, Poison Arrow Frogs and other species you find in tropical rainforests, and it’s true that, generally speaking, the number of species declines as you get into higher latitudes. But, fungi (mushrooms and friends) and lichens tend not to adhere to that rule.
British Columbia probably has more lichens than Costa Rica or the Amazon. This is the Amazon of the lichen world — and we have a global responsibility for the conservation of this organismal group. It’s our thing, lichens are our butterflies, our Poison Arrow Frogs. Costa Rica can take care of its stuff; we need to take care of our stuff.
Wildsight: What are some of the standout species in our region?
Toby: The Ancient Coral Lichen. This is a species that anyone can recognise. You see it and you go, ‘oh, wow, cool, this is something I haven’t seen before’. If you go out looking for ancient coral lichens, you should pay attention to how old the forest is. You almost never find them in young forests, or even medium-aged forests. They’re almost always in old-growth forests, and even then it has to be really good old growth.
You see it in stands of ancient cedars, not just on the west side of Lake Revelstoke but also in the Incomappleux. There’s still a remnant population south of Nakusp too. And if you find ancient coral lichen, that’s usually an indication that you’re in a forest that’s going to contain other rare species associated with the Inland Temperate Rainforest.
Wildsight: The lichens that Southern Mountain Caribou eat also rely on old-growth forests. Could you talk a little about that?
Toby: Southern Mountain Caribou depend very heavily on hair lichen as their primary food source to get through long, cold winters. There are probably upwards of 15-20 species of hair lichens in the Kootenay-Columbia region, especially in the more humid, upper-elevation forests.
People who live in this region will have seen a lot of Witch’s Hair or Alectoria lichens, which are pale green to yellowish in colour. But Mountain Caribou studiously avoid Witch’s Hair Lichen; it’s the dark hair lichens, primarily Bryoria, that tend to make for good eating.
Caribou depend on undisturbed forests that are of a sufficient age to grow crops of these dark hair lichens. In a nutshell, this is what core caribou habitat is about. These forests tend to be upwards of 100–120 years old to produce large enough crops of dark hair lichen that they can sustain herds. The older the better though, and the forests that produce really large crops of these lichens tend to be on or near broad ridges or mountain tops where wind can move through them, because hair lichens are sensitive to mold if there’s not enough air movement.
Now you’re starting to see this ecosystem dance: growing enough lichen to sustain entire caribou herds requires that there’s enough wind blowing through the trees, which requires that the canopy be open enough, which you really only get in older forests.
The problem is that the trees in those forests tend to be of a certain diameter, meaning they have a commercial value, and that’s where the caribou/lichen Venn diagram starts to overlap with industry interests and creates an economic conflict.
Wildsight: As a scientist who also cares deeply about these places, how do you negotiate that conflict?
Toby: I’m big on public education and engagement, and helping people in Canada to understand why it’s so important that we protect old-growth forests. We can’t assume that people will see ancient trees and automatically know why they’re so ecologically valuable. Yes, they have innate value, but there are also many organisms that depend on these forests.
If you make it clear that cutting down old-growth forests threatens organisms that have lived and evolved over millions of years, people might start to realize we need a plan other than ‘business as usual’.
Wildsight: What role can lichens play in supporting the conservation of these landscapes?
Toby: The more people become aware of the importance of lichens, the more they become aware of the importance of the habitats that sustain lichens. And that understanding is slowly seeping in.
Around 2005, me and a colleague of mine coined the term ‘Inland Temperate Rainforest’ and it was very gratifying to see the premier of British Columbia use that term during a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Robson Valley 10 or 15 years later. This is a park that was established in no small part because of a recognition of its lichen diversity.
Lichens were also recently cited by the provincial government as one of the reasons for setting aside the Incomappleux Conservancy. So it’s breaking through — politicians are learning how to pronounce the word ‘lichen’. We’re not where we need to be yet, but we’re taking steps in the right direction.
Luckily, there is no public, democratic buy-in to the idea that it’s ok to let species go extinct. Generally speaking, people are not cool with extinction. Hopefully they never will be. This is where public opinion can transition into legally enforceable actions.
Wildsight: What can we learn about the story of landscapes by looking at the lichens found within them?
Toby: You can walk into a forest behind your house and learn through lichens where grouse prefer to perch and do their drumming during mating seasons — there’ll be specific lichens around their perching logs. You can use lichens to find squirrel highways — squirrels don’t use all logs equally, they use some more than others, and you can read that through lichens. And you can read the mineral content of rocks through looking at the lichens on them.
On a larger scale, you can compare entire landscapes, like the Inland Temperate Rainforest and our coastal rainforests, to help answer questions like: which came first? Did our inland system spread out to the coast, or did the coastal system reach inland, or was there an inland rainforest even further into the interior that moved back and forth as the glaciers came and went?
There are upwards of 2,200 lichen species — probably closer to 3,000 — and those species can help us understand what happened to British Columbia in the past, and what’s happening now. I view the way we treat our world through the lens of how our lichens are doing.
Toby’s book The Lives of Lichens: A Natural History is available to order online or through your local bookstore.